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With various ideologies controlling different parts of the election process, will we ever know the "real" Jeb?

Jeb Bush is having a personal identity crisis shaped by political plastic surgery he's doing on his face.

Significant numbers of Americans are drawing a negative association between him and his brother Dubya. It's a problem that Republican make-over artists predicted, warning the faithful that "Jeb faces the likely obstacle of American fatigue with the Bush family and hesitancy to establish a three-member Bush dynasty . . . . [I]t seems, frankly, naïve to suppose that Jeb's family association will not work against him should he choose to formally pursue the presidency in 2016."

"[Jeb's] by far the best-qualified man but . . . there are a lot of great families, and it's not just four families or whatever. There are other people out there that are very qualified, and we've had enough Bushes."

So, what's a loving son to do? Obey your mum or launch your run? To Jeb, the answer's clear:

He's too heavy; bash my brother.

Especially right now, with Tea Party true believers (who vote with a passion in the primaries and who think Jeb's a squish) lining up to shut him out. Assuming he can make it through that thorny patch by pretending to be Mr. Tough Guy, he then has to worry about how to dial back in order to win over the center-right mainstream in the general.

Let the morph begin.

Earlier this week in Concord, New Hampshire, Jeb let it be known that Dubya had failed to bring enough "budget discipline" to Washington when he was president. He chided his slacker sib for not using his "veto power" effectively, and for not working harder to maintain "constraints on spending across the board"--instead of letting the national debt balloon by $4.9 billion during his dynastic demonstration of deficit decadence. (Note: During Dubya's first six years in the White House wheelhouse, federal spending grew at an annual rate of 7 percent, compared to an annual rate of 4% during Obama's first six years at the helm).

But who's counting?

Jeb is:

"I think that in Washington, during my brother's time, Republicans spent too much money."

"Clearly, there were mistakes made as it related to faulty intelligence in the lead-up to the war and the lack of focus on security. My brother's admitted that, and we have to learn from that."

Yes, and Jeb apparently thinks that Jeb has to keep repeating that.

Meanwhile, he's trying to conduct his own war from the middle of the battlefield, hopping back and forth between the opposing trenches. When asked on FOX News if "knowing what we know now" he would have supported George's Big Adventure, Jeb replied, "I would. So would Hillary Clinton, by the way." He later did a clumsy walk-back, singing a different tune to FOX's Sean Hannity:

"I was talking about given what people had known then [in 2003], would you have done it, rather than knowing what we know now."

Jeb also "kinda knows" (his words) something else, as he explained to the Wall Street Journal last December:

"I kinda know how a Republican can win, whether it's me or somebody else-- and it has to be much more uplifting, much more positive, much more willing to be, 'lose the primary to win the general' without violating your principles. It's not an easy task, to be honest with you."

Actually, Jeb, to be honest with you, it's a predictable task. During a recent stop at a sports bar in Portsmouth, you said:

"I don't feel compelled to go out of my way to criticize Republican presidents. Just call me a team player here."

I call you a political player tattooed by the Bush brand that won't go away.